Banksy work shreds itself after selling at Sotheby’s auction

Our daily round-up of news from the art world

Banksy work shreds itself after selling for £1.4 million at Sotheby’s auction | A spray-painted work by the anonymous graffiti artist Banksy, Girl With Balloon (2006) shredded itself after selling for £1.4 million at Sotheby’s, London on Friday evening. The following day, the artist admitted to the stunt by posting a video of the events to Instagram with the caption: ‘The urge to destroy is also a creative urge – Picasso.’ The New York Times reports that bidding for the painting was between two private buyers, who collectively pushed the price to a new record high for the artist at auction. Sotheby’s has not disclosed the identity of the buyer but stated that they ‘are currently in discussions about next steps’.

Jenny Saville self-portrait sets new auction record for a living woman artist | British painter Jenny Saville’s self-portrait Propped (1992) sold for £9.5 million ($12.4 million) at London’s Sotheby’s auction on Friday night, breaking the record for the highest auction price for a living woman artist. According to Art News, the auction started at £2.5million and a 10-minute bidding battle between eight contestants followed, with the work included in ‘The History of Now: The Collection of David Teiger’. The sale surpassed Candy Noland’s ‘Bluewald’ (1989) as the most expensive work sold at auction by a living female artist.

V&A director Tristram Hunt defends pricing of exhibition tickets | The Guardian reports that Tristram Hunt, director of the V&A, has defended his plans to change museum ticket prices, which will be based on a smarter model that takes into consideration booking times. While weekend tickets will be more expensive, the purchase of tickets on quieter weekdays, or by advanced booking, will be cheaper. Speaking at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, Hunt declared that all national museums like the V&A are dealing with the difficult financial climate, especially after cuts to government funding in 2010.

Recommended Reading: | In The New York Times, Farah Nayeri discusses Tate Modern’s upcoming retrospective of textile artist Anni Albers | In Hyperallergic, Daniel Gerwin looks at the minimal art of the overlooked American artist Channa Horwitz.